The Beguiled
Directed by Sofia Coppola
Starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Colin Farrell
Rated R
“The Beguiled” unfolds in that wide terrain between great trash and high art, with source material that could deviate in either direction.
It’s a Sofia Coppola remake of a 1971 Clint Eastwood movie, directed by his “Dirty Harry” collaborator Don Siegel and based on a Southern Gothic novel, and it’s practically drenched in lustful atmosphere as wounded Union soldier John McBurney (Colin Farrell) is taken under the protection of Mrs. Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) at her Virginia boarding school.
What follows is a case study in repression and class struggle, a movie that trades in severe sexual tension informed by the differences between McBurney, an Irish immigrant who joined the war because he needed a little bit of money, and Mrs. Farnsworth and the aristocratic young women (Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning) in her charge.
Coppola, an auteur who has specialized in a range of subdued movies that evoke different sorts of isolating experiences, resists the easy approach of luxuriating in the bodice-ripping details.
With an aesthetic defined by scenes lit with a modicum of candlelight or subdued gray skies, and a reliance on austere painterly compositions, she opts for the Merchant-Ivory approach that stresses the pent-up reservoir of feelings rather than their ultimate release.
It’s consistently engaging, and it’s assembled with an expert hand, even if it’s a more serious approach than the story deserves.
